CHEESE AND BUTTER FACTORIES. log 



made in England is not equal to the finest made in farmhouses. 

 The factory system is not calculated to produce the highest 

 character of cheese ; but the average factory cheese is better 

 than the average farmhouse cheese. The mission of factories 

 has been, so far, to raise the average quality, rather than to 

 produce the finest possible article. Whether it will succeed 

 eventually in equalling the highest individual efforts remains to 

 be proved. 



Twenty years after the opening of the first cheese-factory in 

 America, the first in England was opened, in the town of Derby, 

 viz., in 1871. In the same year the first one to be built in 

 England was put in operation on the estate of the late Hon. E. 

 K. W. Coke, at Longford, in the same county. . These were fol- 

 lowed by others in various dairying counties, chiefly, however, 

 in Derbyshire. The system has not spread to the extent 

 expected, but this is owing mainly to the extraordinary 

 development of the country milk trade during the past twenty 

 years. 



Cow-keeping within urban districts is now to a great degree a 

 thing of the past, and milk is sent by rail to cities and towns. 

 Urban cowsheds were not fit places in which to keep cows, 

 and it was found cheaper to bring milk than forage from the 

 country. The consumption of milk by the people has enor- 

 mously increased in this period of transition. Milk from the 

 country is rightly considered a better article purer, sweeter, 

 and even fresher than that produced in the old urban cow- 

 sheds, which were unavoidably unhealthy. When cows can 

 breathe the pure air and eat the growing grass in the country, 

 they produce healthier milk than those do who are crowded 

 and confined in city cowsheds. 



And hence it is that cheese factories have not become as 

 numerous as was expected in England. Probably there are 

 not more than fifty or sixty of these institutions at present 

 existing in this country, and they are not likely to multiply 

 very much in the future. Associated dairying, indeed, pro- 

 mises to find its development in the form of butter factories, 

 especially in Ireland. At the same time, it must be admitted 



